


So what if I'm fucked?

by dellanfere



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beginnings, First Meetings, M/M, Mentions of Gwen - Freeform, Neighbors, Strangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 10:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8323939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dellanfere/pseuds/dellanfere
Summary: Arthur has flown the nest, and is living on his own for the first time. Uther wants to come visit, and that should be okay – only problem is, Arthur hasn’t cleaned his apartment since he moved in, and his fridge contains nothing but condiments. Can his neighbour help him make his apartment presentable in time?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a birthday gift to one of my lovely friends! Love you lots, and I hope you had a great day and enjoyed the work!

Arthur was sure his voice could be heard through the thin walls of the apartment. If he wasn’t over-reacting, he knew that the fain after-shock of his voice had travelled all the way to the end of the street, a concrete wall and almost a hundred feet in its way.

And yet, his vocal chords hadn’t created enough sound to convey what he had felt inside.

“Are you telling me,” Arthur began, not quite yelling anymore but talking loud enough to annoy the neighbours across the hallway, “that you’re coming _tonight?_ ”

“Yes,” Uther answered him in his ear. He was disturbingly calm; like he hadn’t heard Arthur’s screaming just moments before. “I’m coming tonight.”

“Tonight,” Arthur repeated. “Tonight?”

“I’m bringing Morgana.” And with that, the short phone call was over and done with from Uther’s side. He hung up before Arthur had a chance to talk him out of the horrible, _terrible_ idea what was him intruding into Arthur’s place.

Arthur’s haven, really. A three-month old contract for the upcoming year which had left Arthur in a state of bliss. A place where he could ignore Uther’s calls wishing him back to the company if he wished to. Four walls which let him relax in the evenings in a way he could never do with Morgana or the maids running around him. Invaded, soon enough, by the people he least wished to be invaded by.

He couldn’t just _sit_ there, though. He had to get up, had to clean the bathroom and the kitchen and the living room. Had to stock his pantries full of non-perishable food, find fresh produce to place on his counters, add more drinks to his collection that wasn’t either the cheapest beer or tap water. Had to convince Uther that he had his life under control.

It didn’t matter that it was far from controllable. Takeout for the past three months straight was a secret he wasn’t fond of sharing with his father. And the trash, piling up by the front door, had been giving off a nasty odour for the past week. If Uther saw all this, would he demand Arthur back to the estate?

Even the slight chance of that happening gave Arthur the motivation to do what he had never done before. He would vacuum for the first time, and he would scrub the floors, and, if he didn’t mess up his apartment too badly in the process, he would even wipe down some surfaces. His cleaning scrub, made out of a small closet conveniently placed in his bathroom, was however empty. Had been so since the day he had moved in.

It wasn’t like he would have the _time_ to go shopping for a vacuum, some cleaner fluid – what kind, Arthur didn’t know – and visit the market and shops near his apartment, and then _clean_ the entire apartment, make sure the cleaning supplies were gone away from view, and cook an entire meal for the first time in his life. Arthur also realised that was the simplified version, where he didn’t have to figure out where the recycling room down in the basement was placed, and how to get into it.

 _Gods_ , Arthur thought, _I’m fucked._

* * *

 

The door Arthur stood in front of was identical to his own. It was brown wood, clearly fake, with a rectangular metal-covered hole for the mail to be dropped through. Right above it sat the nameplate. The thing that differed this door to his own was that, while Arthur’s door was still relatively clean, this door has smudges of, what, was that oil?, around the handle.

And the name, of course.

Arthur’s door proudly wore the name _Pendragon_ , showing all passer-by’s that it was someone related to the Pendragon Enterprise living on the other side. Not that anyone had recognised him. Arthur blamed the neighbourhood (though, he did find it nice to be anonymous in his private life); it wasn’t filled with people who would know of, or care for, his father’s company. To his neighbours, Arthur was only the strange bloke who ordered delivery pizza four or five times a week, always at odd hours. Like at 7 o’clock in the morning. Or at 2 am. Or even twice, once, in the same day.

No, this door bore the name _Smith_. Arthur’s knowledge of common names in the country wasn’t lacking, and he knew that Smith was one of the most common ones among its citizens. He hadn’t thought, however, that someone named Smith would actually _be_ one. It would explain the linoleum oil he had been contaminated with when he rang the doorbell – it was a sensation he remembered vividly from the time his father had forced him to take fencing classes, always ordering in new swords coated in the stuff.

When he didn’t get a response after his first try, Arthur rang the bell again. Nothing stirred inside, apart from a cat crying in hopes that it was its owner by the door. Arthur thought, for a second, that he had heard fain footsteps from inside, and his hopes rose. It fell, when he heard that the sound was actually coming from a man walking up the stairs to where Arthur was standing.

“Oh!” the man exclaimed, walking towards him. “Are you looking for Gwen? She’s at the workshop still, I believe.” He passed where Arthur was standing, walking past Arthur’s door, and started unlocking the door on the other side of Arthur’s apartment. The one that Arthur had never heard a sound come from, nor seen a single light shine in the windows when he came home in the evenings. Evidently, whatever he had assumed, had been wrong.

Arthur, cunning as he thought of himself, saw his chance and took it. “No, not really!” he said, walking towards the man. “Just thought I should say hello to my neighbours.”

An eyebrow was raised in suspicious, and it wasn’t either of Arthur’s. “After three months? Charming.” The voice that came out wasn’t amused, and Arthur realised his plan had been given away before he had even started it.

“Alright, alright,” Arthur said while he held up his hands, palms out from his body in a figurative attempt to reflect some of the accusation. “You got me.”

Though Arthur thought he could see a small grin forming at the edge of the man’s mouth – which, in Arthur’s opinion, was far too red for its own good – he never got to see it bloom to its fullest. An almost comical hard line of lips greeted him instead when the man turned around to face Arthur head on. His arms were crossed over his chest, bags hanging from both hands, and Arthur was close to mimicking the man’s stance. In the end, he didn’t.

“So,” the man asked Arthur, “why were you _really_ putting your ears against Gwen’s door?”

Arthur lifted his shoulders, distorted his mouth, and raised his eyebrows. “I just wanted to see if she was home.” He placed his hands in his pockets then, the need to do _anything_ with them becoming almost unbearable. “My father’s coming over tonight, and I needed to borrow some cleaning supplies,” he offered at last, when the man just looked at him as he had grown oversized warts on his forehead. He scratched at his skin, just to make sure. No, nothing had grown. “I thought your apartment was vacant – haven’t heard a thing coming from there, really – so I thought I’d go to, what was her name – Gwen, yeah? – to ask if I could borrow some of hers.”

“Are you telling me you’ve lived here for three months and haven’t cleaned _once_?”

Arthur shrugged his shoulders. “I’m a bit surprised you know how long I’ve been here for. But what can I say, I’ve been busy working.”

Arthur was just about to continue explaining himself when the man interrupted him. “Gods, I have to see this,” he said, and that was it – he had invited himself into Arthur’s filthy apartment, and Arthur wasn’t going to say no. The man quickly opened his own door to place the bags just inside of it, and Arthur walked over to his own to unlock it again. When he did, the hallway was hit by the foul aroma of rotting food.

Though the neighbour’s face did scrunch up in disgust, he didn’t comment on the smell. Instead, he walked in, a cheerily “I’m Merlin, by the way!” coming from him.

Arthur looked at the back of Merlin’s head. “Welcome to the, uh, Arthur Pendragon plaza,” he said, and laughed stiffly to cover his embarrassment as he followed Merlin inside.

* * *

The only positive thing about having practically no furniture and definitely no decorations was that it was easy to clean up. Throw all newspaper into the trash, leave the trash by the door for the moment, and run to Merlin’s flat to get the vacuum cleaner. Sweeping down the table standing in the middle of the living room took only a matter of seconds.

It took, therefore, only twenty minutes to finish the entire room. They moved onto the kitchen, the space left completely unused during the time Arthur had lived there. After throwing out an expired jar of mayonnaise – _“Is this everyone you own food wise? Eggs and HP sauce? I can’t believe this”_ – even the fridge was as good as new.

“What should we take next?” Merlin said when they were done, sweat forming at his temples and a lazy smile making the area around his eyes fill up with crows’ feet. “The bathroom?”

“Um, perhaps not,” Arthur began, but he didn’t stop Merlin from walking past him towards it. Their apartments were most likely identical in their layout, but Arthur still felt a bit queasy to have practically a stranger find their way around his home so easily.

“Why not?” Merlin asked, laughing. Then the door was opened, and all laughter died out. “What have you done in here?” he yelled instead, the panic in his voice almost as strong as the one Arthur felt inside.

“Nothing, really!”

“I can see that you’ve done nothing! There’s bloody hair shavings in _both_ the sink and the tub!” He waved his hands between the two places, as if to show someone above what he had to deal with. Not like Merlin _had_ to deal with anything, anyways. He had offered his help. Arthur thought he really ought to stop complaining, or else just leave completely.

“It’s really not that bad.” Arthur hated having people judge him so much it had been the leading reason to leave the Pendragon Enterprise. Merlin’s judgement didn’t sting as much as his father’s harsh words, but they got to him nonetheless. “Let’s just wash it off and it’ll disappear.”

“Disappear, where? To the hair-clogged drains? Fuck, _Arthur_.” If Merlin’s judgement had got to him, it was nothing compared to how Merlin’s voice, dragging out his name into a whine, sent a cold blooded shiver up his spine and left him momentarily helpless, falling towards the ground for a split second before he caught himself.

 _I’m really,_ really _fucked._

Arthur hoped Merlin had missed the long pause he took before he answered. “Let’s just clean the drains, then, and _then_ wash the shavings off.” Perhaps it hadn’t been the most natural way to continue the conversation. Arthur could admit that.

Merlin talked on as if nothing had happened. “I’ll clean the drains; you go fetch the lime scale remover from the sofa table.”

When Arthur walked into the living room, the first thing he noticed was the difference in air quality. He hadn’t noticed it before – and surely wouldn’t have noticed anything without the help of Merlin – but the air, which used to lay heavy with dust over the room, now didn’t have an offset smell. It made the room seem brighter, somehow. He found the lime scale remover where Merlin had predicted it would be, and went back to the bathroom.

The whole errand couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds, yet when Arthur entered the bathroom again, the scene had completely changed. Merlin had gone from his upstanding position, to lay on his side, one hand holding a showerhead towards the floor and the other blindly reaching for a handle to turn the pipes off.

“What happened?” Arthur asked, slightly worried that Merlin had hurt himself whilst falling down. The water coming out of the showerhead slowly died down as Merlin’s hand found its target.

“Your water pressure is apparently a lot stronger than mine is.” Merlin didn’t sound inconvenienced by being drenched in water. His voice came out light and airy,  and Arthur was both surprised and reassured when he heard a laugh slip through Merlin’s – far-too-red, _wait, don’t think of that, fuck_ – lips. “Who would’ve thought.”

Arthur laughed with him. “Did you get so startled that you dropped the showerhead, or what?”

The silence was all the answer Arthur needed, and now he wasn’t laughing _with_ Merlin; Arthur was laughing _at_ him. The glare he got when Merlin noticed the change in his manner was worth it.

Though it would hinder their process, Arthur couldn’t say he was mad about Merlin spraying water all over his bathroom. Not when his eyes twinkled alongside the droplets in the mirror, and his smile brightened up Arthur’s entire week. He even praised it, when he was that Merlin’s shirt had turned slightly opaque from the liquid. The transparent material showed Arthur the outlines of Merlin’s body: his chest not as flat as Arthur would’ve guessed; the muscles of his arms playing underneath the pale skin; a dark patch of hair leading down into his **—**

 _Will I ever stop being fucked?_ Arthur asked himself. His mind went to the pile of taxes he knew he had to tackle with next week, in an attempt to calm down.

* * *

 

The calm-down attempt worked. That is, until the entire apartment was cleaner than it had been even before the day he moved in, and Arthur realised his father and sister would arrive in less than three quarters of an hour.

“Do you think they’ll enjoy, uh, eggs and ketchup?” Arthur’s mind was stalling, his body panicking.

Merlin looked at him with a kind of amusement reserved to people who enjoyed other people’s pain far too much. “It isn’t really gourmet food, is it?”

Arthur sighed. “No, it isn’t, I guess.” He flopped himself down on a kitchen chair right next to Merlin, trying to ignore the thigh that was pressed against his own. If it had been any other person, the thigh would have offered a moderate heat, grounding him to reality. But the thigh belonged to Merlin, and it was a scalding hot metal which burned though two pairs of jeans and left Arthur’s head swimming in a thick fog.

“Arthur?” At the call of his name, he could shake the fog away and force his legs away from Merlin’s. “Were you listening?”

“What?” _Smooth._ “No, sorry, I was somewhere else for a second.”

The scowl on Merlin’s face looked fake, and cracked within seconds to be formed into a wide grin.

“I was _saying_ ,” Merlin said, “that you could borrow some of my food for the night.”

“Really?” Arthur took a moment to inspect Merlin’s body – purely platonically, of course. “Are you sure you have any food? You look awfully skinny…”

“Sod _off_ , arse!” Merlin said, and started to laugh when he realised Arthur was just teasing him. He punched Arthur lightly on the chest. “Keep the attitude, and you’re getting nothing.”

“Alright, alright.” It was more of a laugh than actual words coming out of him. “I’ll stop.”

“Good.” Merlin nodded to himself over-enthusiastically. “Good.” He started walking towards the front door, beckoning Arthur to follow. “I think I still have some of the lasagne my mum made me in the freezer. It’s seriously good, I bet your dad will love it.”

* * *

 

Uther Pendragon _did_ love Merlin’s mother’s homemade lasagne. Together with the salad Merlin had helped him make (or rather, made himself after Arthur cut his finger slicing a tomato) it was a truly respectable dinner to present.

“I didn’t know you could cook.” Morgana’s smile, fake as it was, spread to Arthur’s face.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Morgana,” Arthur said. The truth – that he hadn’t even tried to fry an egg yet – lay hidden beneath several layers of tight smiles and polite laughter.

“I am thoroughly impressed,” Uther praised as he carefully put another forkful of food into his mouth. The words _I’m proud of you, son_ could be heard between the words he actually had said. He continues, after swallowing. “Perhaps it was a good idea for you to gain independence. You seem to really know how to take care of yourself.”

“Thank you, father.” Arthur could barely keep himself in check.

* * *

 

At eight, the next evening, Arthur exited his apartment into the hallway of closed doors. In two big bags, he carried leftover décor from the day before: herbs he had never heard of, fruit he had never tasted, and uncooked meat from unknown sources. Alongside the bags, he also carried a bottle of wine. He had no idea what kind it was, for Arthur had never been a big wine drinker, but it had been his father’s house warming gift, and if nothing else _that_ proved that it had to be good.

He put one of the bags on the floor as he rang the bell of his neighbour. This time, the door didn’t read _Smith_ , but rather _Emrys._ The name owner appeared within a couple of short moments.

“Oh, Arthur!” Merlin looked less chocked than he sounded. “How did you know I was home?”

“Now that I know that you live here, I guess my ears taught themselves to pick up the sounds coming from your apartment.” Arthur knew that the smile he sported wasn’t one of the professional ones he had been taught when he was younger, nor the polite ones from yesterday. Rather, it was his natural one; crooked, full of teeth, and genuine.

He had always hated the way his face naturally wanted to scrunch up when he smiled, but when Merlin’s grin mirrored his own, Arthur couldn’t help but fall, fall, _fall_ for the too-big ears that twitched alongside Merlin’s smile.

Arthur broke the quiet moment himself. He indicated towards the bag at his feet, and reached the other bag over. “Your groceries.”

“Thanks!” Merlin took them from Arthur’s hands, letting their fingers intertwine so he could get a good grip of the handles.

“And a gift,” Arthur said quickly before Merlin had the chance to close the door. “Wine. My father’s house warming gift, but, well, I’m not really that much of a wine drinker, am I?”

The sheepish look on Merlin’s face made Arthur slightly worried. Maybe it was overkill to give your neighbour expensive wine in exchange for cleaning help and three portions of their mother’s lasagne. Or had Merlin expected something more personal, rather than a hand-down gift from his father?

Looking down at his feet, red face almost completely hidden behind curly bangs, Merlin spoke. “Neither am I.”

“Oh!” Arthur was laughing before he was entirely sure what had happened. “That’s brilliant!” Arthur took time to even out his breathing before he continued. “How about I treat you to dinner, then?”

“Will you cook it yourself?”

Even Arthur understood that Merlin was teasing him. “I think it’s better if we go out and eat instead. As a date?”

The smile Merlin’s face produced now, better than every smile he had ever seen before, made Arthur forget all about the stress he was to experience the coming morning at work, or the fact that he _still_ couldn’t find his way to the recycling room on his own, or that his fridge was worryingly empty. Instead, Arthur only saw the childish way the blue eyes in front of him twinkled, and how Merlin’s hands grasped the bags’ handles a bit more tightly, and the short visit of a pink tongue wetting his lower lip.

“Yeah, sure. I’d love to.”

_So what if I’m fucked?_

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mothadan)!


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